Today is something of departure from our usual public affairs focus to catch up with one of Minnesota’s critical cultural institutions – The Minnesota Orchestra. It’s actually back with a vengeance after nearly two years of roiled relationships between the Orchestral Association and its musicians. This group of extraordinary talents found itself confronted by the take-it-or-leave it offer during negotiations of a 32% cut in their pay, among other items, or face a lockout. The predictable outcome was to reject the offer. All music activity ceased.

Lockouts have increasingly used by management of all sorts of industries, but to counter strikes by union employees. The public simply was caught unaware that this could happen to a revered bunch of professionals like the 95 tuxedoed classical musicians. The management – Michael Henson and the board chair at the time, Jon Campbell, wanted to pare the orchestra’s size – significant, according to the members, to maintain the high quality of musicianship.

After 15 months of a very painful lockout during which the world class conductor, Osmo Vänskä, resigned when a Carnegie Hall concert long scheduled had to cancel. Last straw for Vänskä, so he moved to the sideline, but not too far. He conducted several concerts staged by the Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra in a few local venues, joined by well-known concert soloists like pianist Emanuel Ax. Other former music directors came “home” to lead the ensemble in other concerts - Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Edo de Waart and Eiji Oue.

Finally, the swords were sheathed enough to come to agreement and the lockout ended January 14th.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS will talk with three men intimately in the Orchestra’s operation, negotiations, performing and reporting on it all. Then, we’ll hear selections from the Grammy-winning recording of the Jean Sibelius’ symphonies, and a treat – some live cello from Tony Ross, and the amazing season now planned.

This last weekend the Green Line (Central Corridor) started rolling for its inaugural trip along the 11 miles connected downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis, to the so-called “Target Central” station, where most of the rail systems serving the Cities and the region hereabouts will ultimately converge and become the Metro region’s transit hub and even an entertainment venue (presumably to keep. Keeping our focus on the LRT and other transit equity issues seems apropos in returning to this topic this week.

A whole hell of a lot of angst emerged from the disruptions for small business outlets along University Ave, especially, in St. Paul, most of them owned and operated by entrepreneurs of color.

Equity issues can still be found in most aspects of the design and construction of the Green Line well beyond the impacts on business. New lines are planned to cut through sensitive neighborhoods, but not necessarily ready to serve the equity needs for the new parts of North Minneapolis and the entire Southwest Corridor stretching to Eden Prairie. Some of the issues rearing their heads again, many new ones have highlighted the uniqueness of each project – how does the Northwest-bound Bottineau Light Rail Transitway (Blue Line extension) actually serve the nerve center of the North Side’s African-American community. The natural corridor, Broadway Ave, weaves through already distressed neighborhoods, too narrow without the capacity to carry a standard light rail system. Smaller-gauge rails – like those of streetcars – would fit. Is that a solution to fair and equitable access to transit for Northsiders. Riders there could connect to the Bottineau via streetcar. But what other issues confront these folks?

Then, not far from the Bottineau, the Southwest Light Rail system (Green Line)planned through the near-North Harrison neighborhood before swinging Southwest through five cities – Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. The battle lines here have been complicated by the role older freight rails and the alignment through the Cedar Lake complex of lakes, bike and hiking trails.

Southwest will be covered as the Metropolitan Council, the Minneapolis City Counciland the City of St. Louis Park where well-heeled West Minneapolitans and St. Louis Parkers are demanding their amenities of one sort or another be preserved as they see it. Some of the issues have been partially resolved, but where does the equity play out in this scenario selecting the routes for those segments of the SWLRT.

This time out, we’ll explore the equity issues for the two lines on the west of the city and its suburban sisters and North Side under serious debate and organizing around them along their respective corridors.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS talk with the active organizers directing their efforts to ensure equity and neighborhood concerns are addressed.

Today is something of departure from our usual public affairs focus to catch up with one of Minnesota’s critical cultural institutions – The Minnesota Orchestra. It’s actually back with a vengeance after nearly two years of roiled relationships between the Orchestral Association and its musicians. This group of extraordinary talents found itself confronted by the take-it-or-leave it offer during negotiations of a 32% cut in their pay, among other items, or face a lockout. The predictable outcome was to reject the offer. All music activity ceased.

Lockouts have increasingly used by management of all sorts of industries, but to counter strikes by union employees. The public simply was caught unaware that this could happen to a revered bunch of professionals like the 95 tuxedoed classical musicians. The management – Michael Henson and the board chair at the time, Jon Campbell, wanted to pare the orchestra’s size – significant, according to the members, to maintain the high quality of musicianship.

After 15 months of a very painful lockout during which the world class conductor, Osmo Vänskä, resigned when a Carnegie Hall concert long scheduled had to cancel. Last straw for Vänskä, so he moved to the sideline, but not too far. He conducted several concerts staged by the Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra in a few local venues, joined by well-known concert soloists like pianist Emanuel Ax. Other former music directors came “home” to lead the ensemble in other concerts - Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Edo de Waart and Eiji Oue.

Finally, the swords were sheathed enough to come to agreement and the lockout ended January 14th.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS will talk with three men intimately in the Orchestra’s operation, negotiations, performing and reporting on it all. Then, we’ll hear selections from the Grammy-winning recording of the Jean Sibelius’ symphonies, and a treat – some live cello from Tony Ross, and the amazing season now planned.

This last weekend the Green Line (Central Corridor) started rolling for its inaugural trip along the 11 miles connected downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis, to the so-called “Target Central” station, where most of the rail systems serving the Cities and the region hereabouts will ultimately converge and become the Metro region’s transit hub and even an entertainment venue (presumably to keep. Keeping our focus on the LRT and other transit equity issues seems apropos in returning to this topic this week.

A whole hell of a lot of angst emerged from the disruptions for small business outlets along University Ave, especially, in St. Paul, most of them owned and operated by entrepreneurs of color.

Equity issues can still be found in most aspects of the design and construction of the Green Line well beyond the impacts on business. New lines are planned to cut through sensitive neighborhoods, but not necessarily ready to serve the equity needs for the new parts of North Minneapolis and the entire Southwest Corridor stretching to Eden Prairie. Some of the issues rearing their heads again, many new ones have highlighted the uniqueness of each project – how does the Northwest-bound Bottineau Light Rail Transitway (Blue Line extension) actually serve the nerve center of the North Side’s African-American community. The natural corridor, Broadway Ave, weaves through already distressed neighborhoods, too narrow without the capacity to carry a standard light rail system. Smaller-gauge rails – like those of streetcars – would fit. Is that a solution to fair and equitable access to transit for Northsiders. Riders there could connect to the Bottineau via streetcar. But what other issues confront these folks?

Then, not far from the Bottineau, the Southwest Light Rail system (Green Line)planned through the near-North Harrison neighborhood before swinging Southwest through five cities – Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. The battle lines here have been complicated by the role older freight rails and the alignment through the Cedar Lake complex of lakes, bike and hiking trails.

Southwest will be covered as the Metropolitan Council, the Minneapolis City Counciland the City of St. Louis Park where well-heeled West Minneapolitans and St. Louis Parkers are demanding their amenities of one sort or another be preserved as they see it. Some of the issues have been partially resolved, but where does the equity play out in this scenario selecting the routes for those segments of the SWLRT.

This time out, we’ll explore the equity issues for the two lines on the west of the city and its suburban sisters and North Side under serious debate and organizing around them along their respective corridors.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS talk with the active organizers directing their efforts to ensure equity and neighborhood concerns are addressed.

You would think this country never before faced the reality of raging inequalities embedded in our history and culture from the flood of recent latest state and federal reports, articles, activists writers from local scholars and up to the national and international level – like Pulitzer winning columnist Paul Krugman, say, or David Cay Johnston, on the economic side, or Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow) and hundreds of other voices from inside and outside the cultures appearing all over the place in the re-emergence of criminal enforcement travesty in the rate of incarceration of men (and women) of color in this country.

Hardly new.

When a topic gets hot – for a time – the topic is made to look as though the subject had never raised its ugly face before this.

Is this another fad with its relevant – and important – writings expect to gathering dust on shelves in desk drawers when it’s all waving red flags – again – crying out for serious action and changed attitudes?

The latest – and excellent, perhaps courageous – effort to document the decline or failure to improve in addressing – seriously – healthcare disparities in a Minnesota Department of Health issued in February (directed to submit to the Legislature). Advancing Health Equity in Minnesota (Feb, 2014) It dives in and avoids sugar coatings about thestructural racism that continues to cement the inequality in healthcare access, cost and outcomes among Minnesotans of color – most especially African-Americans, Native Americans ad Latinos (documented and undocumented).

But the Health Report goes well beyond simple definitions, but succinctly inform an ill-informed public that this:

This report reveals that:

• Even where health outcomes have improved overall, as in infant mortality rates, the disparities in these outcomes remain unchanged: American Indian and African American babies are still dying at twice the rate of white babies.

• Inequities in social and economic factors are the key contributors to health disparities and ultimately are what need to change if health equity is to be advanced.

• Structural racism — the normalization of historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal dynamics that routinely advantage white people while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color and American Indians — is rarely talked about. Revealing where structural racism is operating and where its effects are being felt is essential for figuring out where policies and programs can make the greatest improvements.

• Improving the health of those experiencing the greatest inequities will result in improved health for all.

Take note: the mention of white privilege in a state report – a rarity. But the easier, perhaps, for public consumption is the recent essay (blog) penned by UST Law School Professor, Nekima Levy-Pounds on White Privilege.

(We had hoped to include Commissioner Ed Ehlinger or the report’s co-authors – Assistant Commissioner Jeanne Ayers and/or Melanie Peterson-Hickey, Research Scientist at Minnesota Center for Health Statistics. And we’ll try to get the on another time.)

Once more, we try to convert the written word to action by recognizing just how deeply in our DNA now that it perpetuates the notion that whites are superior, smarter, cleaner, law-abiding, etc., and that whites control the massive machinery of every aspect of American – and they barely recognize just how truly privileged they have been for centuries.

(To get us started Monday morning is a short conversation with Winona LaDuke, Indigenous Economist and White Earth activist, head of Honor the Earth, fighting the tar-sands oil pipelines being pushed across the upper plains and Indian Country land. A perfect example of White Privilege still in action as the powers march across the lands long ago usurped by our Native brothers and sisters.)

Racism, our privilege, and all the economic, education, health care and the rest we see in the disparities in action every day, subtle and not so must be seen as a dangerous, public health issue for all of us.

Inequality – and the appropriate dark cloud hanging over the self-governance promise we have yet to see one fulfilled – belies the near-apocalyptic direction we’re heading if we don’t seriously form a plan to reverse the fatal direction.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS take your mind into the depth of these issues – not to scare us away, but to see the dangers lurking if we don’t change all of it.

GUESTS:

NEKIMA LEVY-POUNDS – Director, Community Justice Project (CJP), an award-winning civil rights legal clinic and Professor of Clinical Education in the St. Thomas University Law School.

DANE SMITH – President of Growth & Justice, a broad public policy research organization addressing economic, education and healthcare inequities across the board.

Less than four weeks out from the launch of the Green Line (Central Corridor), on the heels of opening the so-called “Target Central” station, where will ultimately converge all of the rail systems serving Minnesota and the region hereabouts and become the region’s transit hub and even an entertainment venue (presumably to keep .

A whole hell of a lot of angst emerged from the disruptions for small business outlets along University Ave, especially, in St. Paul, most of them owned and operated by entrepreneurs of color.

Equity issues could be found in most aspects of the design and construction of the Green Line well beyond the impacts on business. For many residents living along this corridor, memories of the historic inequity visited on the central city of St. Paul dating back to first major divisive swath of freeway – I-94 – cutting through all many of the properties and the folks living around there remember Rondo. For the older folks displaced or friends and family of those going through the prime example of trampling on residents and businesses back now loomed large as they envisioned the Central Corridor wiping out another predominantly community of color in the same general vicinity.

Now, new lines are planned to cut through sensitive neighborhoods, but not necessarily ready to serve the equity needs for the new parts of North Minneapolis and the entire Southwest Corridor stretching to Eden Prairie. Some of the issues rearing their heads again, many new ones have highlighted the uniqueness of each project – how does the Northwest-bound Bottineau Light Rail Transitway (Blue Line extension) actually serve the nerve center of the North Side’s African-American community. The natural corridor, Broadway Ave, weaves through already distressed neighborhoods, too narrow without the capacity to carry a standard light rail system. Smaller-gauge rails – like those of streetcars – would fit. Is that a solution to fair and equitable access to transit for Northsiders. Riders there could connect to the Bottineau via streetcar. But what other issues confront these folks?

Then, not far from the Bottineau, the Southwest Light Rail system (Green Line)planned through the near-North Harrison neighborhood before swinging Southwest through five cities – Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Eden Prairie. The battle lines here have been complicated by the role older freight rails and the alignment through the Cedar Lake complex of lakes, bike and hiking trails.

Southwest has been covered well as the Metropolitan Council, the Minneapolis City Council and the City of St. Louis Park where well-heeled West Minneapolitans and St. Louis Parkers are demanding their amenities of one sort or another be preserved as they see it. Some of the issues have been partially resolved, but where does the equity play out in this scenario selecting the routes for those segments of the SWLRT.

This time out, we’ll explore the equity issues for the two lines on the west of the city and its suburban sisters and North Side under serious debate and organizing around them along their respective corridors.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS talk with the active organizers directing their efforts to ensure equity and neighborhood concerns are addressed.

Local Somali and East African communities are fighting poverty, educating kids and promoting peace and development in the Horn of Africa as well as in their “new” US communities.

Ask your neighbor about the Somali Diaspora in Minnesota, and she is likely to tell you about the pirates in the academy awarded nominated film, Captain Phillips, young El Shabab recruits, and growing Somali power in local politics. Less understood is the major contribution Somalis and other East Africans make to their countries of origin. From the individual financial contributions that serve as a life line for relatives back home, to disaster relief and hunger alleviation, to an increasingly sophisticated range of education and development efforts, Minnesota’s East African community is making a difference.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and Guest Host, TOM O’CONNELL will be joined by three guests who are deeply familiar with these efforts.

GUESTS:

ABDURASHID ALI – Director of Somali Family Services, a Twin Cities based nonprofit with extensive programs in Puntland, Somalia. Beginning with the construction of Puntland’s first library and resource center, SFS has organized a series of impressive initiatives aimed at building a peaceful, democratic, and just Somalia.

JAYLANI HUSSEIN – Board Secretary, American Relief Agency For the Horn of Africa (ARAHA); Lead Consultant, Zeila Consultants; Planner, MN Department of Agriculture. Mr. Hussein has traveled the Horn of Africa on number of times on behalf of ARAHA – to open a regional field office as well as to oversee large‐scale humanitarian projects in the Somali Famine of 2011. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Community Development/City Planning and is currently pursuing a law degree.

AWO AHMED – Literacy Program Coordinator, Metropolitan State University. Awo plans to do graduate work in global health and use her knowledge to work with her father, who directs a health clinic in Lasbas, Somalia.

And all this time, most of us believed Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration of…what?

This year’s parade, etc., took place Saturday, the 3rd, but Saturday is always parade day.

Parades, colorful Mexican costumes, great food, a daylong gathering of the Mexican and Anglo communities, but just how much have we really known about Cinco de Mayo – the 5th of May?

Some of us know that Cinco celebrates a victory for Mexicans, but of what?

Turns out in Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is less important than Mexican Independence Day(September 16), but the Cinco celebrations themselves are even more rooted in the American culture. We’ll find out why.

We thought we’d talk about the history of Mexican batallas - battles - of which Cinco de Mayo – known in Mexico as El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla)­- is considered in Mexico is somewhat less than the most important victories for Mexico. Still, they defeated the French occupiers in 1862. Mexico has always been in battles for their independence against the Spanish, the Americans, the French.

We talk about that history and of how Cinco de Mayo annually grow for Mexican-Americans and the rest of us look forward to the hoopla.

TTT ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS sit down with the Minnesota Mexican consul titular and others tied into St. Paul’s and Minnesota Cinco celebrations.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party’s Cooperative Commonwealth Platform—the boldest vision for a new society every adopted by a successful American political party. What made the platform more than a utopian fantasy was the daily experience of thousands of Minnesotans who were busy building cooperatives across the length and breadth of our state.

By 1935, Minnesota could boast 2,886 consumer coops with a combined membership of 531,180, the most in the nation. Notable is the Rural Electrical Coop system to deliver electricity to otherwise energy-deprived farm operations.

Today, the cooperative movement remains strong in Minnesota, even if the vision of social transformation isn’t as wide-spread as it was in the 30’s.The most obvious example is theremarkable growth of food coops. Of special note is the expansion of Seward Coopand Mississippi Market to serve lower income and more ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

But there is more to the cooperative movement than food coops – and not all entirely benign. Massive energy distributor and producer cooperatives have often stepped into the corporate model of governance and less transparent, not to mention questionable huge coop owners.

Land-O-Lakes, CENEX, Twin Cities Milk Producers, whose products may be quality competitive, but not always the most affordable and often have been allowed by state agencies to run roughshod over farmlands with dairy, corn and livestock “cooperative” producers not always operating the public interest environmentally and open governance.

And yet! Credit unions, senior housing, health care, and the hardware purchasing coops that make the small-town independent hardware store possible, are all part of a larger and not always well understood story.

TTT’s TOM O’CONNELL and SIOBHAN KIERANS explore the dynamic growth of coops in Minnesota and do some forward thinking about the potential - and challenges – the state and the movement itself faces the future.

And all this time, most of us believed Cinco de Mayo is an annual celebration of…what?

This year’s parade, etc., took place Saturday, the 3rd, but Saturday is always parade day.

Parades, colorful Mexican costumes, great food, a daylong gathering of the Mexican and Anglo communities, but just how much have we really known about Cinco de Mayo – the 5th of May?

Some of us know that Cinco celebrates a victory for Mexicans, but of what?

Turns out in Mexico, Cinco de Mayo is less important than Mexican Independence Day(September 16), but the Cinco celebrations themselves are even more rooted in the American culture. We’ll find out why.

We thought we’d talk about the history of Mexican batallas - battles - of which Cinco de Mayo – known in Mexico as El Día de la Batalla de Puebla (The Day of the Battle of Puebla)­- is considered in Mexico is somewhat less than the most important victories for Mexico. Still, they defeated the French occupiers in 1862. Mexico has always been in battles for their independence against the Spanish, the Americans, the French.

We talk about that history and of how Cinco de Mayo annually grow for Mexican-Americans and the rest of us look forward to the hoopla.

TTT ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS sit down with the Minnesota Mexican consul titular and others tied into St. Paul’s and Minnesota Cinco celebrations.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party’s Cooperative Commonwealth Platform—the boldest vision for a new society every adopted by a successful American political party. What made the platform more than a utopian fantasy was the daily experience of thousands of Minnesotans who were busy building cooperatives across the length and breadth of our state.

By 1935, Minnesota could boast 2,886 consumer coops with a combined membership of 531,180, the most in the nation. Notable is the Rural Electrical Coop system to deliver electricity to otherwise energy-deprived farm operations.

Today, the cooperative movement remains strong in Minnesota, even if the vision of social transformation isn’t as wide-spread as it was in the 30’s.The most obvious example is theremarkable growth of food coops. Of special note is the expansion of Seward Coopand Mississippi Market to serve lower income and more ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

But there is more to the cooperative movement than food coops – and not all entirely benign. Massive energy distributor and producer cooperatives have often stepped into the corporate model of governance and less transparent, not to mention questionable huge coop owners.

Land-O-Lakes, CENEX, Twin Cities Milk Producers, whose products may be quality competitive, but not always the most affordable and often have been allowed by state agencies to run roughshod over farmlands with dairy, corn and livestock “cooperative” producers not always operating the public interest environmentally and open governance.

And yet! Credit unions, senior housing, health care, and the hardware purchasing coops that make the small-town independent hardware store possible, are all part of a larger and not always well understood story.

TTT’s TOM O’CONNELL and SIOBHAN KIERANS explore the dynamic growth of coops in Minnesota and do some forward thinking about the potential - and challenges – the state and the movement itself faces the future.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party’s Cooperative Commonwealth Platform—the boldest vision for a new society every adopted by a successful American political party. What made the platform more than a utopian fantasy was the daily experience of thousands of Minnesotans who were busy building cooperatives across the length and breadth of our state.

By 1935, Minnesota could boast 2,886 consumer coops with a combined membership of 531,180, the most in the nation. Notable is the Rural Electrical Coop system to deliver electricity to otherwise energy-deprived farm operations.

Today, the cooperative movement remains strong in Minnesota, even if the vision of social transformation isn’t as wide-spread as it was in the 30’s.The most obvious example is theremarkable growth of food coops. Of special note is the expansion of Seward Coopand Mississippi Market to serve lower income and more ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

But there is more to the cooperative movement than food coops – and not all entirely benign. Massive energy distributor and producer cooperatives have often stepped into the corporate model of governance and less transparent, not to mention questionable huge coop owners.

Land-O-Lakes, CENEX, Twin Cities Milk Producers, whose products may be quality competitive, but not always the most affordable and often have been allowed by state agencies to run roughshod over farmlands with dairy, corn and livestock “cooperative” producers not always operating the public interest environmentally and open governance.

And yet! Credit unions, senior housing, health care, and the hardware purchasing coops that make the small-town independent hardware store possible, are all part of a larger and not always well understood story.

TTT’s TOM O’CONNELL and SIOBHAN KIERANS explore the dynamic growth of coops in Minnesota and do some forward thinking about the potential - and challenges – the state and the movement itself faces the future.

Hosts Siobhan Kierans and Tom O’Connell with their guests are Ken Pentel and Kel Heyl. Ken will be talking about the Genuine Progress Indicator and Kel will be talking about a price tag for the 21st century. A price tag that includes Initial Price + Life Cycle Cost + Carbon Footprint.

GUESTS:

KEN PENTEL – Founder of the Ecology Democracy Network;former candidate for governor on the Green Party ticket (1994).

Hosts Siobhan Kierans and Tom O’Connell with their guests are Ken Pentel and Kel Heyl. Ken will be talking about the Genuine Progress Indicator and Kel will be talking about a price tag for the 21st century. A price tag that includes Initial Price + Life Cycle Cost + Carbon Footprint.

GUESTS:

KEN PENTEL – Founder of the Ecology Democracy Network;former candidate for governor on the Green Party ticket (1994).

The so-called cutthroat “Cable Wars” of the early 1980s throughout the Metro Twin Cities as core cities – Minneapolis and St. Paul – along with clusters of groups of suburban cities banded forming joint powers –issued requests from proposals for the essential exclusive franchise to supply municipal huge new systems offering upwards of 60 channels of television programming.

The several cable company competitors for each of these franchise awards begged, hired local power figures and promised the moon to the cities or joint cable commissions – PEGs (public, education and government) channels anywhere from three to seven channels of community and public access programming. Even after all the cable company investment, they actually received a license to print money and to string their cables alongside telephone and power lines throughout the service areas under the jurisdiction.

This came with huge annual funding and capital equipment supplied by the winning cable company – and with at least a guarantee of 15 years of a franchise. With time, channels added to the tiers of cable television and more money came in – and still they want to take back those channels they “gifted” to the cities and communities – except that these cable outfits pass through their costs assessing per-subscriber fee. That tells you how profitable each of those public access channels could be if they brought back into the commercial corral – while the cities and nonprofits and just plain folk would lose their ability to program to supply the meager information and services over the channels. Why must they re-capture those channels?

Now, most cable commissions and cities are in the throes of second and third rounds of re-franchise negotiations – and again they want to reduce the number of channels, stop funding these channels altogether and/or stop supplying the production and transmission equipment to sustain these important community links to the cities throughout the Metro and well beyond.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS talk with some of the Metro cable access organizations ad advocates to highlight the importance and future of community programming channels and nonprofits serving our local cities.

The so-called cutthroat “Cable Wars” of the early 1980s throughout the Metro Twin Cities as core cities – Minneapolis and St. Paul – along with clusters of groups of suburban cities banded forming joint powers –issued requests from proposals for the essential exclusive franchise to supply municipal huge new systems offering upwards of 60 channels of television programming.

The several cable company competitors for each of these franchise awards begged, hired local power figures and promised the moon to the cities or joint cable commissions – PEGs (public, education and government) channels anywhere from three to seven channels of community and public access programming. Even after all the cable company investment, they actually received a license to print money and to string their cables alongside telephone and power lines throughout the service areas under the jurisdiction.

This came with huge annual funding and capital equipment supplied by the winning cable company – and with at least a guarantee of 15 years of a franchise. With time, channels added to the tiers of cable television and more money came in – and still they want to take back those channels they “gifted” to the cities and communities – except that these cable outfits pass through their costs assessing per-subscriber fee. That tells you how profitable each of those public access channels could be if they brought back into the commercial corral – while the cities and nonprofits and just plain folk would lose their ability to program to supply the meager information and services over the channels. Why must they re-capture those channels?

Now, most cable commissions and cities are in the throes of second and third rounds of re-franchise negotiations – and again they want to reduce the number of channels, stop funding these channels altogether and/or stop supplying the production and transmission equipment to sustain these important community links to the cities throughout the Metro and well beyond.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and SIOBHAN KIERANS talk with some of the Metro cable access organizations ad advocates to highlight the importance and future of community programming channels and nonprofits serving our local cities.